Accelerating the Transition to a Circular Economy for Net-Zero Emissions by 2050: A Systematic Review

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear authors

First of all, i want to say that your scientific paper is very interesting and very adequate for the policity makers can know how is the situation of the management of the renewable energies and the possibilities of improvement of the same in a context like the present one that requires that the governments and the companies must improve the use of the different sources of energy for the production of goods and the rendering of services.

 

The work they have done is very interesting and from my point of view for it to be more read and known should strengthen the part of introduction and conclusions for all people interested in this field of knowledge and in the search for solutions and accelerating instruments that can help them to design strategies for their economic systems to be more efficient in terms of the use of energy sources and generally make the production model more sustainable.

 

From my point of view  is important that university professors and researchers do this type of research and awareness work to implement energy efficiency measures that help to meet the 17 SDGs of the UN and to optimize the rational use of energy.

 

I also propose some keywords for other researchers to find references to your research.

Keywords:

collaborative energy economy, recuperative technologies, energy efficient economy, 

 

I  think  that these  papers  can provide ideas for improving the introduction and conclusion parts of this article.

I would like to encourage you to incorporate more references and ideas with the objective the improvement this research. Thanks for your effort.

Papers and links:

Rodríguez, R. M., Labella, Á., Nuñez-Cacho, P., Molina-Moreno, V., & Martínez, L. (2022). A comprehensive minimum cost consensus model for large scale group decision making for circular economy measurement. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 175, 121391.

Ellen MacArthur Foundation. Towards the Circular Economy: Economic and Business Rationale for an Accelerated Transition. Available online: https://www.ellenmacarthurfoundation.org/assets/downloads/publications/Ellen-MacArthur-FoundationTowards-the-Circular-Economy-vol.1.pdf

Sadhukhan, J. Net-Zero Action Recommendations for Scope 3 Emission Mitigation Using Life Cycle Assessment. Energies 2022, 15, 5522. https://doi.org/10.3390/en15155522

Meseguer-Sánchez, V., Gálvez-Sánchez, F. J., Molina-Moreno, V., & Wandosell-Fernández-de-Bobadilla, G. (2021). The main research characteristics of the development of the concept of the circular economy concept: a global analysis and the future agenda. Frontiers in Environmental Science, 304.

 

 

 

Author Response

RESPONSE TO REVIEWER 1

We would like to thank you for the positive evaluation of our work and for affording us, the opportunity to revise and enhance our manuscript.

In our response letter to your comments, you can find detailed replies to all of your comments. We have tried as much as we could to address all the comments and remarks raised by you to whom we are grateful for your meticulous reading of the paper. The revised manuscript has also undergone a thorough revision. 

Comment 1

First of all, I want to say that your scientific paper is very interesting and very adequate for the policymakers can know how is the situation of the management of the renewable energies and the possibilities of improvement of the same in a context like the present one that requires that the governments and the companies must improve the use of the different sources of energy for the production of goods and the rendering of services.

Authors’ Response

Thank you very much for your positive feedback; this will encourage our team to further explore and develop in the current subject to meet your expectations.

Comment 2

The work they have done is very interesting and from my point of view for it to be more read and known should strengthen the part of introduction and conclusions for all people interested in this field of knowledge and in the search for solutions and accelerating instruments that can help them to design strategies for their economic systems to be more efficient in terms of the use of energy sources and generally make the production model more sustainable.

Authors’ Response

The Introduction section has been revised touching on the rationale of the study in lines 50-51, 73-78, 108-144.

The conclusion section has been revised to offer more clarity on the major findings and future research directions with the introduction of lines 596-600, 611-616, 618-624, and 627-632.

Comment 3

From my point of view is important that university professors and researchers do this type of research and awareness work to implement energy efficiency measures that help to meet the 17 SDGs of the UN and to optimize the rational use of energy.

 Authors’ Response

Thank you for your positive feedback, we will work through our research to elaborate and create awareness consistent with the 17 SDGs of the UN and to optimize the rational use of energy.

Comment 4

I also propose some keywords for other researchers to find references to your research

Authors’ Response

Thank you for your valuable comments and we strongly agree with you that this will help create more visibility for the paper. The suggested keyword are added (Collaborative Energy Economy, Recuperative Technologies, Energy Efficient Economy).

Comment 5

I think that these papers can provide ideas for improving the introduction and conclusion parts of this article

Authors’ Response

Relevant findings of proposed papers are incorporated into lines 71-81, 134-137, and 376-381

Comment 6

I would like to encourage you to incorporate more references and ideas with the objective the improvement this research. Thanks for your effort

Authors’ Response

The team provided more relevant papers, which are incorporated in the introductory section and methodology section based on the reviewer's suggestions

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

In this paper, the author(s) presents a systematic review related to accelerating the transition to a CE for net-zero emissions by 2 2050. In particular, the study provides a critical literature review related to the CE for net-zero by synthetizing the existing approaches and frameworks. 

In the introduction section, the rationale for and the aim/motivation of the study has not been stated clearly. In other words, the rationale (academic underpinning) for conducting this study is not strong and is currently weak.

 

·         An interesting area of research and the results provide significant practical contributions to the CE literature. However, there is a need to elaborate further the theoretical contributions of these findings.

    -    Academic justifications could be better to support your methodology choices – some of the statements/claims made sounds more arbitrary. There is no real scholarly justification and this needs to be strengthened; 

-   - improve discussions related  future research directions; 

-   - research findings need to address the agendas proposed in the study.

 

 

 

Author Response

RESPONSE TO REVIEWER 2

We would like to thank you for the positive evaluation of our work and for affording us, the opportunity to revise and enhance our manuscript.

In our response letter to your comments, you can find detailed replies to all of your comments. We have tried as much as we could to address all the comments and remarks raised by you to whom we are grateful for your meticulous reading of the paper. The revised manuscript has also undergone a thorough revision.

Comment 1

In this paper, the author(s) presents a systematic review related to accelerating the transition to a CE for net-zero emissions by 2050. In particular, the study provides a critical literature review related to the CE for net-zero by synthetizing the existing approaches and frameworks.

Authors’ Response

Thank you very much for your positive feedback; this will encourage our team to further develop in the current subject to meet your expectations and companies.

Comment 2

In the introduction section, the rationale for and the aim/motivation of the study has not been stated clearly. In other words, the rationale (academic underpinning) for conducting this study is not strong and is currently weak.

Authors’ Response

Thank you for your accurate observation as we agree to this. The rationale for the study has been revised to provide more academic justifications in lines 110-142

Comment 3

An interesting area of research and the results provide significant practical contributions to the CE literature. However, there is a need to elaborate further the theoretical contributions of these findings

Authors’ Response

The findings' theoretical implications are that there is a need for a shift away from linear economic theory to CE paradigm across technology, finance, behavior, and ecosystem. For instance, the pricing of risks by financial institutions only looks at the quantifiable cost without looking at the environmental cost. This is discussed in lines 511-526, and 627-640.

Comment 4

Academic justifications could be better to support your methodology choices – some of the statements/claims made sounds more arbitrary. There is no real scholarly justification and this needs to be strengthened.

Authors’ Response

The methodology section has been revised with a focus on situating of the thematic areas within the literature. See lines 153-168.

Comment 5

Improve discussions related to future research directions.

Authors’ Response

The discussion section has been revised as the authors try to make meaning of the findings and link them to research questions and related literature. See lines 473-485, 511-526, 542-556 and 591-601 and 625-640.

Comment 6

Research findings need to address the agendas proposed in the study.

Authors’ Response

The discussions have been revised to link research agendas in lines 473-485, 511-526, 542-556 and 591-601 and 625-640

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Dear authors,

thank you for this interesting contribution about the identification and analysis of accelerators for CE implementation enabling to reach net-zero emissions by 2050. Some comments to improve the overall quality of the manuscript are below reported.

 

1) introduction: it is not mentioned the manufacturing sector related problems although it represents one of the most resource greedy sectors. It is suggested to read the following contribution to extend your reasonings over different sectors “A literature review on circular economy adoption in the manufacturing sector; Journal of Cleaner Production; https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2020.123086”

3) methodology:

§  it is suggested to revise the strings of keywords including the synonyms, singular and plurals to ensure to include all the relevant contributions about this topic. For instance, the keyword “economic sectors” might be “economic sector*”, “technology” might be changed in “technolog*” and so on.

§  The second part of methodology (i.e.  CE principles) seems to be a sort of background section. It is suggested to better explain the need of this part here or to separate it from the methodology.

2) results:

§  it is suggested to better structure this chapter in order to make the reader really understand the reasoning behind the definition of these set of accelerators. Indeed, in the methodology section this selection has been explained linking it to previous studies; however, the iterative process of a systematic literature review may lead to an extension of these dimensions or a deeper investigation of all of them. It is suggested to better clarify this process. In two recent studies “A Systematic Literature Review on Data and Information Required for Circular Manufacturing Strategies Adoption; Sustainability;  https://doi.org/10.3390/su13042047” and “A conceptual data model promoting circular manufacturing; Operations Management Research; https://doi.org/10.1007/s12063-022-00271-x” data are perceived as accelerators for instance enabling to create the right ecosystem involving several stakeholders (both industrial and consumers) by exploiting the right technologies.

§  it is also suggested to introduce some schema or graphs to improve the clarity of the results and to better describe the links among the different parts of this section.

3) discussion and conclusions: it is suggested to improve the link between the analysis conducted through the systematic literature review and the CE accelerators for net-zero emission by 2050 since until now the discussion seem to be mainly about the current state and not future opportunities.

Author Response

RESPONSE TO REVIEWER 3

We would like to thank you for the positive evaluation of our work and for affording us, the opportunity to revise and enhance our manuscript.

In our response letter to your comments, you can find detailed replies to all of your comments. We have tried as much as we could to address all the comments and remarks raised by you to whom we are grateful for your meticulous reading of the paper. The revised manuscript has also undergone a thorough revision.

Comment 1

Introduction: it is not mentioned the manufacturing sector related problems although it represents one of the most resource greedy sectors. It is suggested to read the following contribution to extend your reasonings over different sectors “A literature review on circular economy adoption in the manufacturing sector; Journal of Cleaner Production; https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2020.123086

Authors’ Response

The manufacturing sector was considered part of the industrial sector. Nonetheless, the relevant part of the recommended paper has been integrated into the introduction section in lines 72-78 and the methodology section in lines 161-163.

Comment 2

Methodology: it is suggested to revise the strings of keywords including the synonyms, singular and plurals to ensure to include all the relevant contributions about this topic. For instance, the keyword “economic sectors” might be “economic sector*”, “technology” might be changed in “technolog*” and so on

Authors’ Response

This has been done in lines 213-217

Comment 3

The second part of the methodology (i.e. CE principles) seems to be a sort of background section. It is suggested to better explain the need for this part here or to separate it from the methodology.

Authors’ Response

The section under which this is discussed is “data collection and methodology”. The thinking behind this sub-section is that there has to be a background on the CE as the main data collected revolves around it. This will provide the needed basic information and context for readers to contextualize the findings.

Comment 4

Results: it is suggested to better structure this chapter in order to make the reader really understand the reasoning behind the definition of these set of accelerators. Indeed, in the methodology section this selection has been explained linking it to previous studies; however, the iterative process of a systematic literature review may lead to an extension of these dimensions or a deeper investigation of all of them. It is suggested to better clarify this process. In two recent studies “A Systematic Literature Review on Data and Information Required for Circular Manufacturing Strategies Adoption; Sustainability; https://doi.org /10.3390/su13042047” and “A conceptual data model promoting circular manufacturing; Operations Management Research; https://doi.org/10.1007 /s12063-022-00271-x” data are perceived as accelerators for instance enabling to create the right ecosystem involving several stakeholders (both industrial and consumers) by exploiting the right technologies

Authors’ Response

We have revised this section by focusing on situating the results within the literature and identifying potential research areas future research can address. See lines 473-485, 511-526, 542-556 and 591-601 and 625-631.

Comment 5

It is also suggested to introduce some schema or graphs to improve the clarity of the results and to better describe the links among the different parts of this section.

Authors’ Response

Figure 1 provides a conceptualization of the relationship between the various themes.

Comment 6

Discussion and conclusions: it is suggested to improve the link between the analysis conducted through the systematic literature review and the CE accelerators for net-zero emission by 2050 since until now the discussion seems to be mainly about the current state and not future opportunities

Authors’ Response

The understanding is that once CE transition is accelerated and achieved, there will be a higher chance of achieving net-zero emissions by 2050, especially for those developed countries that started carbon pricing and CCUS. The discussion section has been revised in 473-485, 511-526, 542-556 and 591-601, 625-631, 640-645

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear Authors

I have rechecked your work and found that you have incorporated the improvements that I had suggested to improve it.

 

I thank you for the effort you have made so that this research work can be known and used by the university and scientific community to continue working in this line of work that is very important in these times of climate change.

 

I wish them the best and encourage them to continue working in this field of research.